Can't run certain .exe's - “Open With” dialog box keeps popping up instead of launching the app

Question

Win XP Home fresh install. Two profiles, one administrator, one limited.

On the limited account only, the "Open With" dialog box pops up on certain .exe's I attempt to run - particularly Firefox and IE. I can not find a way to run the .exe.

I've scanned for viruses using both AVG and Symantec and they turn up nothing. The .exe's work fine from the administrator account. Googling doesn't turn up much.

Anyone here have any ideas?

Thanks all.

Answer 1

Are you sure you are seeing the entire extension. If you have hide know file types you could actually see file.exe.txt as file.exe. For a test try to launch an exe with cmd and see if you can run it that way.

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Also right click on properties and find the target try to launch the actual exe not the link.